"Everything is being driven by football, it has been for the last 20 years," Boeheim told reporters prior to his speech. "The Big East went from an eight or nine team conference to a 17 team conference because of football, and money," he said in a frank conversation with reporters. You can see that interview below.

In his speech, the Hall of Fame basketball coach left little doubt about his view. "If conference commissioners were the founding fathers of this country, we would have Guatemala, Uruguay and Argentina in the United States," Boeheim said. "This audience knows why we are doing this. There's two reasons: Money and football."

However, Boeheim doesn't think the schools will actually come out ahead dollar-wise.
"At the end of the day, there's a school with a billion-dollar budget and they're talking about making an extra $4 million. What does that really mean when your school's budget is a billion dollars? It's just what has happened. People feel like they have to get these mega conferences. Whether they're right or wrong, we won't know for a while."

Boeheim predicts that when the realignment shakes out UConn will wind up in the ACC and possibly Rutgers as well.

He says the ACC is a great basketball conference, but SU will be leaving a great basketball conference. The coach was nostalgic about long-time rivals like Georgetown and St. John's but concluded that, in today's world, "everybody's moving."

Boeheim also predicted that the ACC would continue to hold its tournament mostly in the south, with occasional visits to Madison Square Garden, home of the Big East Tournament.

"It's a great place for a tournament," he told the audience. "Where would you want to go to a tournament for five days? Let's see: Greensboro, North Carolina, or New York City? Jeez. Let me think about that one and get back to you."

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